Building owners are responsible for managing building safety and performance issues in their buildings in a proportionate, risk-based and evidence-based manner, and for taking action where necessary.

Existing legislation and guidance already require building owners and responsible persons to identify, assess and manage safety risks in residential buildings, including low-rise council blocks. This includes requirements under the Housing Health and Safety Rating System and the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005.

The Government keeps building safety requirements under review. Updated HHSRS regulations and guidance came into force in June 2026.

Current HHSRS guidance is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/housing-health-and-safety-rating-system-hhsrs-guidance.

Current FSO guidance can be found here: ‘A guide to making your small block of flats safe from fire’ and ‘Fire safety in purpose-built blocks of flats’.

I know that the Hon Member has taken a long and passionate interest in this issue, both during and following the six years that she spent working for the release of her constituent, Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, from detention in Iran.

I am very pleased to tell her and other Parliamentary colleagues that the Foreign Secretary has today (14 July) appointed the Rt Hon Alistair Burt, former Minister of State for the Middle East, to serve as the UK's special envoy for complex consular cases.

The new role has been created to provide additional support in particularly complex cases, including those involving concerns about the welfare of UK detainees, their entitlement to due process and the protection of their human rights. Mr Burt will help ensure that the most complex detention cases continue to receive focused senior attention, supporting the UK's efforts to secure progress and resolution.

Mr Burt will advocate on behalf of detainees and will work closely with families to ensure that their views are heard and reflected in the UK's approach. He will also support coordination across Government and advocate for resolutions in the most challenging cases, ensuring that every possible avenue is being pursued.

He brings extensive experience to this position from his previous ministerial role at the Foreign, Development & Commonwealth Office, where he established a strong track record in handling complex consular cases, including engagement with detainees' families and senior international counterparts, and navigation of sensitive issues in high-pressure environments

The Housing Ombudsman Service is an independent and impartial body responsible for investigating complaints about social landlords.

The Ombudsman is taking steps to improve timeliness and performance, including increasing capacity, strengthening its processes, and introducing more proportionate approaches to investigations.

Through its Business Plan 2026/27, which can be found here, the Ombudsman has set out a programme of work to reduce the number of older cases and improve the speed of case resolution. This includes increasing its workforce and introducing a multi‑year caseload reduction strategy focused on delivering faster outcomes for residents.

The Ombudsman has also increased its membership fees, paid by landlords, to support these improvements and ensure it has the resources needed to respond to rising demand.

If the care leavers are PIP recipients —I think that is probably the case in the example my hon. Friend has given—we are certainly considering that point. If this issue is one that she thinks we need to reflect on in the review, I would be keen to hear about such experiences.

I join my hon. Friend in marking Windrush Day and thank her for raising it, because it gives me the opportunity to thank a community who made an extraordinary contribution to our country, and to remember the injustice that they faced. I am proud that we have overhauled the compensation scheme to deliver faster access to compensation and justice, providing £1.5 million for organisations supporting claimants, and we have appointed the first ever Windrush commissioner to rebuild trust and deliver justice. I am incredibly proud to lead a country that is built on dignity and respect, where everyone is seen and everyone is valued.

Ministers met with the manufacturers of Enhertu, AstraZeneca and Daiichi Sankyo, in November 2024 to encourage them to engage constructively with NHS England and the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) to reach a commercial agreement that would enable patient access for patients with HER2-low metastatic breast cancer.

Enhertu for HER-2 low metastatic breast cancer remains the only breast cancer treatment that NICE has been unable to recommend for patients in the last eight years. This was because, at the price offered by the company in 2024, the treatment was too expensive for the benefits it provided and NICE concluded it was not cost effective. Despite NICE and NHS England offering unprecedented flexibilities, the companies were unable to offer Enhertu at a cost-effective price.

As part of the US-UK trade arrangement, announced in December 2025, NICE is now using a new higher cost-effectiveness threshold. Given these new circumstances, discussions involving NICE, the manufacturers and NHS England have resumed to try to seek agreement on a commercial offer that would make Enhertu cost effective. NICE stands ready to consider reviewing the guidance if new evidence, including a new commercial offer, were to be put forward by the company.

All customers have access to support throughout the process, including the Move to Universal Credit Helpline and independent Help to Claim support provided by Citizens Advice, which offers tailored assistance to help people make and manage their claim.

We also provide eligible customers with Transitional Protection where their Universal Credit entitlement would otherwise be lower than their previous legacy benefit award, ensuring their entitlement is protected at the point of migration.

We recognise that some groups, including Employment and Support Allowance (ESA) customers may be more vulnerable. For these customers, enhanced support is in place from the point they receive their Migration Notice. This includes the Enhanced Support Journey, which offers tailored contact and visiting officer support where appropriate for those who have not yet engaged.

In addition, we have identified that some customers require a personal or corporate appointee but may not have arrangements in place ahead of the ESA closure date. In such cases, we will exempt these customers from the closure date to ensure they are not disadvantaged. This does not mean ESA will remain in payment indefinitely and a final closure date for these customers will be determined in due course.

This country is a world leader in financial services because we adhere to high standards. Both the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority have powers to enforce regulation, the ability to apply a range of sanctions to firms and individuals who breach their rules, and to prosecute offences in the criminal courts.

The Government has set out in the Water White Paper a commitment to accelerate the smart meter rollout. This includes maximising cost savings to customers by moving customers away from a ratable value to a smart metered charge. Smart meters also provide data to increase leakage identification and reduction and provide customers with insights into their water usage.

Ofwat has also announced a competition, closing in March, as part of its £25 million Water Efficiency Lab to enable better data insights on water usage for customers, this includes those customers who cannot have a meter fitted and are reliant on ratable values.

I thank my hon. Friend for her advocacy for her constituents in what has been an absolutely appalling case. My thoughts remain with all the children and families who have been affected. The safety of our children comes first, so we are considering the mandatory use of CCTV in early years settings through the review we are getting under way rapidly.

The safety and wellbeing of children in nurseries and early years settings is our priority and we continually monitor and review safeguarding requirements for early years settings to ensure children are kept as safe as possible. Where evidence shows that changes are needed, we take action to strengthen requirements and provide clearer expectations for providers.

In September 2025, the government introduced changes to the safeguarding requirements within the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) statutory framework. These changes were informed by evidence and engagement with the early years sector and were designed to strengthen safeguarding practice across settings, including clearer and more robust expectations around safer recruitment, whistleblowing and staff training.

The department is developing free, online safeguarding training in collaboration with the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children. The training will support providers to meet statutory requirements and promote a strong and open safeguarding culture across early years settings.

In December, my right hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Education, announced that she will be appointing an expert panel to inform guidance for the sector on the effective and safe use of digital devices and CCTV in relation to safeguarding. The panel will consider the question of whether CCTV should be mandated and will set out best practice, technical information and clear expectations on CCTV and digital device usage. No decisions have been taken in advance of this work.

The safety of the youngest children is our utmost priority, which is why the EYFS statutory framework includes clear requirements on safe sleep. The framework requires that babies are placed down to sleep safely and in line with the latest government guidance and that sleeping children are frequently checked. To make the existing requirements clearer for all, we plan to add in more detail to the EYFS frameworks. We have worked with safe sleep experts, including the Lullaby Trust, on proposed new wording.

Ofsted inspects early years providers against the safeguarding and welfare requirements of the EYFS statutory framework. Through our Best Start in Life strategy, we are investing in raising the quality, frequency and consistency of inspections, including work to strengthen oversight of larger nursery chains.

The government is also strengthening multi-agency safeguarding arrangements through the Children’s Wellbeing and Schools Bill. These measures place duties on safeguarding partners to ensure education providers and childcare settings are appropriately involved in local safeguarding arrangements, while not changing any existing duties on providers.

Leasehold and commonhold reform are key priorities for this Government, and we remain absolutely determined to honour the commitments made in our manifesto and finally bring the feudal leasehold system to an end in this Parliament. We have already brought into force a range of provisions from the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024, and we will progress the required secondary legislation to commence many more this year. We also intend to publish an ambitious draft commonhold and leasehold reform Bill in the coming weeks.

I appreciate fully that leaseholders with leases approaching 80 years remaining want clarity on when the enfranchisement provisions in the 2024 Act will be brought into force. To bring those provisions into force, we need to not only consult on valuation rates, but rectify through primary legislation the small number of serious flaws in the 2024 Act that the previous Government bequeathed to us. The latter is obviously a more challenging proposition than the former, but we intend to make the necessary fixes as soon as possible so that leaseholders can begin to benefit from the new valuation process. I am more than happy to speak to my hon. Friend in further detail about the way in which we plan to take these reforms forward.

Registered Providers of social housing are expected to set reasonable and transparent service charges for tenants that reflect the service being provided. Tenants should be supplied with clear information about how service charges are set.

The government’s policy statement on rents for social housing makes clear out that Registered Providers should endeavour to keep increases for service charges within the limit on rent increases, which is CPI (as at September in the previous year) +1 percentage point, to help keep charges affordable.

On 4 July, the government published a consultation on strengthening leaseholder protections over charges and services. The proposals will apply to tenants of local authorities and private registered providers who pay both fixed and variable service charges.It can be found on gov.uk here.

For an overview of the proposals set out in the consultation, I refer the hon. Member to the associated Written Ministerial Statement made on 4 July 2025 (HCWS780). This consultation closed on 26 September and we are analysing responses.

Tackling violence against women and girls is a top priority for this Government, and our mission to halve violence against women and girls in a decade has begun. We will deliver a transformative cross-Government approach that is underpinned by the new strategy, which we will publish soon.

I would be happy to speak to my hon. Friend and her constituent about that case; I have heard similar cases with regard to high-worth, powerful rapists or alleged rapists. It is vital that we undertake a proper change to how our policing and justice system works for rape victims, whether through Operation Soteria or other interventions such as the new national centre for VAWG; we need to improve the situation across the country, not just see pockets of good practice. It is going to take time, but I am more than happy to work with her on that.

The Government is taking a range of actions to strengthen whistleblowing protections for workers, including female workers.

Through the Employment Rights Bill, we are amending the Employment Rights Act 1996 to clarify that workers are protected from detriment or dismissal by their employer if they ‘blow the whistle’ on sexual harassment, as long as the conditions in the legislation are met. This is an important reform that may encourage more workers to speak up about sexual harassment.

In addition, the Government will introduce legislation in this Parliament to disbar senior NHS leaders who have been dishonest or covered up unsafe practice from working in leadership roles in the NHS again.

We recognise the importance of cultural and educational exchanges between UK and other nations. Any decisions relating to our policy on school trip travel must be made with due regard to the proper functioning of our immigration system. The UK and France agreed measures in 2023 which made UK-France school trip travel easier. These arrangements were agreed as part of a wider package of measures. A similar agreement with Germany has also been reached, as part of the wider UK-Germany Friendship and Bilateral Cooperation Treaty, which was signed by the Prime Minister in London on 17 July.

These arrangements are separate from our discussions with the EU regarding a youth experience scheme.

First of all, may I say how sorry I am to hear that my hon. Friend’s constituent Yasmin has been living in those conditions for so long? We have published draft guidance for social landlords to make sure that they understand the requirements under Awaab’s law. As my hon. Friend would expect, we are working very closely with them to support their operational readiness. We took a phased approach, but we are encouraging social landlords to act now. They should raise any concerns with us now, so that we can consider how to best support them. In the meantime, they must meet their existing legal obligations.

In June, we announced over £1 billion of investment to accelerate cladding remediation by giving social landlords the same access to Government remediation schemes as that afforded to private building owners. We will shortly publish revised guidelines on how to access the funding, and a joint plan with social landlords and regulators, in order to accelerate remediation and improve resident experience.